OO Contributor Carl Gerbschmidt Contemplates the Future of the NFL’s Premier Left Tackle Post ACL Injury
It is often said that football games are won and lost in the trenches. The big men along the offensive and defensive lines dictate the game. As a result, a Superbowl run generally requires a team that is solid across the offensive line. If your quarterback does not have time to throw, if your elite running backs don’t have holes to run through, your team is not likely succeeding.
On the offensive line, no player is more important that your blindside protector. For a right-handed quarterback, that is the left tackle. For the Green Bay Packers that has been stalwart David Bakhtiari for the better part of a decade.
David Bakhtiari was drafted by the Packers in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL draft. The Packers quickly found they had struck gold with their raven-haired tackle. In the following decade, he anchored a solid offensive line. He achieved All-Pro honors 2018 and 2020 as well as a second team All-Pro honors in 2016, 2017, and 2019. He has been to three pro bowls in 2016, 2019, and 2020. At times during his tenure in Green Bay, he has been hailed by writers and pundits as the best left tackle in football.
Statistics back up those lofty honors. In 2017, Bakhtiari finished the season with a Pro Football Focus (PFF) grade of 88.9 which was the best grade for all offensive tackles. He followed that up with the 2018 campaign where he finished the season with a PFF grade of 88.3, which again was the best grade for all offensive tackles. After a down year in 2019, he finished the 2020 year as the number 2 graded player at the position (91.8). Specifically, in 2020, he played 758 snaps and registered just four penalties and one sack while missing weeks 7 -9 with a chest injury.
By all measures, Bakhtiari has been stellar player on the field and a popular personality off it Whether he is protecting Rodgers blind side, presenting him with a custom Aston Martin golf cart, or chugging beers on the jumbotron at Milwaukee Bucks games, he is beloved by fans. Unfortunately, his career was derailed in 2020, when he suffered a season ending knee injury during a New Year’s Eve practice on December 31, 2020. The injury, a torn ACL, resulted in a shuffling of the offensive line that continued throughout the 2021 season.
The Packers had high hopes to return their star tackle to the lineup in 2021. However, he suffered several setbacks, including a second in-season surgery on his injured knee. Ultimately, Bakhtiari played just 27 snaps in 2021, all against the Detroit Lions in Week 18, before being shut down for the year ahead of the Packers playoff run. It was later reported the star left tackle had his knee drained 15 times throughout the 2021 season, a figure that is alarming given the length of recovery up to that time. Now, to start the 2022 training camp, Bakhtiari has been again placed on the PUP list while recovering from a two-year-old knee injury.
Bakhtiari’s injury trajectory raises serious questions about his longevity. Even if he can come back, will he still be the same elite player, or should Brian Gutekunst be looking for temporary and long-term replacements?
Bakhtiari will turn 31 in September. He has nine years of wear and tear in a competitive and often brutal NFL. His dead cap hit for the Packer is $35.8 million this year and $23.1 million in 2023. Unfortunately, it has been said NFL stands for “Not For Long” and league statistics dictate he may not be the same player he once was when he returns.
The truth is nobody knows when Father Time will come calling. However, statistics can be informative. The NFL Players’ association indicates the average NFL career lasts only 3.5 seasons. Power, strength, and speed are well established requirements for success in football. It is equally well established that each of those traits erodes over time. How quickly that erosion occurs may be a product of each players training and injury history. Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz made it to age 32 before his performance declined. Of course, he never faced an ACL injury. Orlando Pace, a first overall draft selection in 1997 started his decline at age 31 in 2006 and played only 8 games that season due to a knee injury. He was never the same player.
A study first published March 7, 2022, by the Orthopaedical Journal of Sports Medicine, compared return-to-play and performance levels by position for NFL players after an ACL tear. For its methodology, all NFL players who underwent ACLR between 2013 were identified and their performance metrics studied for the three years before and following their injuries. In all, 312 players were included in the study. Of that number only 174 returned to play. Only 28.5% of the players studied were still active in the league three years after the injury.
Given the steady dose of contact that occurs in the trenches, and the number of snaps taken at the position, knee injuries can be all the more devastating for linemen. Given the Bakhtiari’s age (30); the wear and tear of the number of seasons in the league (9), and his lingering injury status, it seems unlikely he will ever produce consistent with his pre-2020 numbers. Given his cap hit, could Bakhtiari be a candidate for a trade when he returns to health? Is that even possible with his current cap numbers? Would he take a reduced contract given his production over the past two seasons?
One thing is clear, for Bakhtiari’s future with the Packers there are more questions than answers and he cannot currently be relied on to anchor the offensive line of a 2022 with Superbowl aspirations.